Geological Observations of Volcanic Islands

Visiting as he did the districts in which Von Buch and others had found what they thought to be evidence of the truth of "Elevation-craters," Darwin was able to show that the facts were capable of a totally different interpretation. The views originally put forward by the old German geologist and traveller, and almost universally accepted by his countrymen, had met with much support from Elie de Beaumont and Dufrenoy, the leaders of geological thought in France. They were, however, stoutly opposed by Scrope and Lyell in this country, and by Constant Prevost and Virlet on the other side of the channel. Darwin, in the work before us, shows how lit